EFFECT[ive] Marketing…Connecting Real-Life Businesses with their Online Market

No one would quarrel with the common lament that today’s service industry suffers from a stunning lack of concern for customer service. But is it really the fault of a generation of apathetic front-line workers?

[Warning: We're going to reveal a couple of Big Secrets to Outstanding Service after the jump. Naw, really, they're not that big, and they're really not that secret—well, they shouldn't be, anyway.]

Peter Senge, Director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, once said in a magazine interview: “Most Americans have no idea what good customer service is, because they’ve never had it.” That was in 1991. It’s safe to say that eighteen years later, it’s no easier to find.

Sure, pretty much everyone who oversees a customer–service–based business (and isn’t that nearly all of them?) likes to boast in their ads about their “commitment to service.” But knowing it’s a good thing to brag about only means they know it’s important to their customers; it doesn’t mean they have even the slightest clue how to make it happen.

Now, only someone who’s never been to a fast–food drive–through, or stood in line at WalMart, or eaten at a Chilly Ruby Friday’s, or dialed just about any customer support line would argue with the contention that customer service in America is, well, nonexistent. But I don’t buy the traditional explanation for the problem: that “kids today” are to blame, that we’re raising a generation of young people who never learned what a work ethic is (this, by the way, has been a popular complaint in this country at least since the dawn of the Industrial Age). Here’s why:

First, there’s the not–all–that–uncommon exception that disproves the rule: if your eyes are open to it, it’s really not that hard to find individuals who are obviously very devoted to customer care. There are even entire operations (and not just furriers or Bentley dealerships) that are clearly dedicated to taking great care of their customers. Without a doubt, though, it’s fair to say there aren’t nearly enough of them.

Second, if you run a business, this rationale is irrelevant. It doesn’t make any difference how rare excellent customer service is — for your business to be a success, you have to find a way to make it happen anyway. The upside to this is that great service is so rare that if you can even come close to mastering it in your business, it will bring you raving fans aplenty.

We know the exceptions, the ones who get it right, are out there; we just need to figure out how they do it. What’s different about those operations, those people, that makes excellent customer service something they can pull off regularly while those around them can barely spell it?

I slyly hinted at one of the Big Secrets of Outstanding Service a couple of times three paragraphs ago, and it’s really pretty simple:

• It’s the word “care.” People who are good at taking care of their customers care about taking care of their customers.

It’s wired into them, or they learned it from their parents, or they saw it on TV, or they believe in the Golden Rule, or they got a stone tablet on a hill. Don’t know, don’t care. Wherever it comes from, they care. And that makes them a treasure for your business.

The second Big Secret of Outstanding Service is your responsibility as the owner or manager of your business; it’s a simple but reliable management strategy (but only if you can commit to it—truly commit to it for the long haul).

When a business owner or manager appreciates that providing consistently outstanding service is the most efficient marketing tool in their arsenal, they manage their staff in a particular way:

1. They recruit and hire carefully to seek out those customer–service gems, the candidates with that coveted service focus and outlook;
2. They train their staff thoroughly and give them clear expectations of what behaviors are expected and which are out of bounds—and they clearly explain why;
3. They consistently monitor their people’s interactions with customers, intervene when needed, consistently model the behaviors they want, and reinforce them enthusiastically when staff members exhibit them.
4. And when a staff member demonstrates, over time and after retraining, an inability or unwillingness to uphold the operation’s standards of customer service, those owners and managers remove them from the team so as to maintain control over those standards.

I’ve called this strategy “simple”; am I suggesting that it’s easy? Absolutely not. I’ve managed a number of staffs using this approach, and keeping it going over the long haul wore me out. But it was worth it. It yielded a consistently high level of service; it generated continual raves from customers (which is a great measure of loyalty); it even reduced staff turnover and boosted their loyalty and pride in their work—as long as everyone was on board with the approach, including assistant managers and line–level supervisors when I wasn’t in the building. If the game changes when you’re not there, you’re leaving people in charge you shouldn’t trust. And if you leave them there, you’re failing at the fourth point above, and you’ve surrendered control of your operation.

No, it’s not a magic bullet for success in a customer service business. But it’s a pretty simple strategy to implement. It takes time and work to get the people in place that you need, but if you devote yourself to it, you’ll create an operation that runs near its potential and that runs well even when you’re not there.

And you will have done your part to resuscitate customer service.

If your service business employs a customer-service staff, even a small one, you’ve probably emphasized to them more than once that the customer is the most important person to your operation. And from their perspective, that’s definitely in your best interest.

But from your strategic standpoint as owner or manager – and contrary to countless customer-service books – your customers are actually only the second most important group in your business.* Here’s why:

Think for a moment: how much time do you actually spend face-to-face with each of your customers? And how much time does each of your customer-service employees spend face-to-face with them? If your business is at least moderately successful, the answers are probably, in order, something like, “Not much” or “As much as I can,” and, “A lot more than I do.”

In any service business where there is a level of employees between the customer and you, the manager or owner – a sales team, a server staff, cashiers, telephone operators – those employees are going to amass a whole lot more “face time” with your customers than you will. Why? It’s what you’re paying them to do. You pay them to provide consistently excellent service to your customers, guests, clients, patrons, or whatever you want to label them. You pay them to do it because, unless your business is very, very slow, you don’t have time to deal with every customer yourself.

Your service staff is absolutely indispensable to the success of your business. Do you treat them accordingly?

Do you make hiring decisions with their importance to your operation in mind? Do you devote enough time and energy to training them to take care of your customers just as you would? Do you monitor them to ensure that they are working at your (and your customers’) standards? Do you show them the respect they deserve and that will make them want to continue to perform well for you? Do you accept, and even solicit, your employees’ insight and input into your operation?

Do you offer your customer service staff all of the tools they need to provide your customers with the superb service you would give them yourself?

* Now, lest you get the uppity notion that just because you’re Top Dog, you are the most important person to the business’s success, try this little exercise (and be honest with yourself): if your customer service staff somehow vanished suddenly, how long could your business keep running? Would your customers continue to, or be able to, do business with you? Now, how long would your business be able to run if you suddenly vanished (after you opened the front door)? Would customers still be able to do business with your operation? The answer is probably yes. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably see that your service staff actually is the most important component in your customer-service operation. (Now, don’t feel bad. Your job is executive and administrative – crucial, to be sure, and you’d be missed as soon as your cashier needed change, or the new employee schedule was due, or a delivery person needed a check. But it might be quite a while before one of your customers asked where you were.)